Du Page Trends.

Play Ball!

Softball, That Is

No Longer Relegated To Vacant Lots, These Enthusiasts Are Pursuing Their Field Of Dreams Everywhere You Look

August 01, 1993|By Jeffrey Steele. Special to the Tribune.

These days, the popularity of softball is soaring higher than a towering home run. And in few places is that more apparent than in the Du Page area, where organized softball is being played not only by greater numbers but also by a wider range of adults than ever before.

While men's teams are still the most common, women's and coed squads are increasingly taking to the field. And in recent years, they've been joined by over-40 and over-50 teams made up of men who aren't yet ready to hang up the spikes.

For proof of the sport's growing popularity, one need look no farther than the emergence of meticulously groomed, highly equipped softball facilities throughout the area during the last few years.

Not so long ago, softball leagues were forced to stage their games wherever organizers could find a backstop. Playing fields were customarily weed-strewn diamonds where bad hops were the rule rather than the exception.

But in many suburbs today, the softball venues have taken on trappings more commonly associated with professional baseball parks.

For example, at the Naperville Park District, four of six diamonds are lighted for night games, most have bleachers and all are carefully tended by an experienced grounds crew.

The Wheaton Park District has seven different fields, three with lights, and the park district even furnishes scorekeepers.

Downers Grove's McCollum Park has four lit fields, bleachers, a concession stand and a state-of-the-art automatic sprinkler system to keep the fields lush.

And in Elgin, where games as recently as seven years ago were scheduled at school fields, the Elgin Sports Complex boasts 10 lighted diamonds with home and visitor bleachers, concession stands and electronic scoreboards.

In each city, the new facilities have been continually improved to meet a surging demand for diamonds from the softball-mad populace.

"Softball is definitely growing," said Jay Havenaar, softball coordinator with the Naperville Park District. "That's especially true in our coed leagues, where we've seen phenomenal growth. We started the (coed) program about four years ago with just six teams playing one night a week. Now we have 24 teams in the summer playing on three different nights, and another eight in the fall."

The story's much the same in Wheaton, where park district supervisor Ed Rompa observed, "It's really grown. You can see it in our 12-inch leagues for men. Two summers ago we had just 12 teams; now we have 23. Plus, we have two women's leagues, three different leagues in men's 16-inch, and next year I'm planning on starting a league for men over 30."

Rompa is not only a softball supervisor but an avid player. Sometimes playing as many as 50 games a year in as many as three neighboring cities, he has witnessed first-hand the importance many players attach to the sport.

"Players take it a lot more seriously than many people think," he said. "I've seen it go from, `Let's go out and have a good time on a Sunday afternoon,' to, `Let's go out and win this thing at all costs.'

"The competitive leagues are the ones that are growing the fastest, and the competitive players play all the time," he added. "I'll see players and teams in my league, and then I'll see them again in two other leagues I play in-one in West Chicago and another in Lombard."

Not too far away, in Downers Grove, softball has also caught on in a major league way. There, 52 different teams (32 men's 12-inch teams, 10 men's 16-inch and 10 women's 12-inch teams) take part in four different leagues.

But Tom Carstens, recreation center supervisor with the Downers Grove Park District, observes that his program could be even bigger. "If we had more space, we could field more teams," he said. "But there's not a lot of room to add more diamonds in Downers Grove; we're pretty much landlocked here."

As supervisor of the softball program in the suburb, Carstens also is called upon to make sure the program's strict rules are observed. In the spring, he calls together the captains of both men's and women's leagues and reminds them to keep hot-headed behavior to a minimum during the season.

"I tell them to remember what this is," he said. "I tell them it's just softball; it's not life and death. Life goes on the next day after your game."

Then he lays down the law: "If you touch another player (in anger), you're gone for the whole year. If you're kicked out of a game, you're automatically suspended for two more games. We've found we can limit the problems by strictly enforcing these rules."

As in many other Du Page County towns, a growing number of players in Carstens' Downers Grove leagues are women.

Typical is Mary Anne Smrz, 38. Smrz is president and founder of New Beginnings Creative Services Ltd., a graphic arts agency in Downers Grove. But many summer nights will find her roaming the outfield in the red and black colors of her team, sponsored by Pizza Hut.